Anita Borg, founder of Systers, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and the Institute for Women and Technology has passed away. Thank you for your tenacious vision, Anita. You will be greatly missed.

The SF Chronicle takes closer look at MRE development, a common food topic these days. The MRE weight needs to be under 1.5 pounds. It has to supply 1,250 calories and be edible for up to three years, stored at 80 degrees. It must be waterproof, vermin-proof and able to survive a 100-foot drop without a parachute. Because there are more women eating the MREs, folic acid and iron are now part of the added nutrients. Morale-boosting snacks (often used as poker currency) include M&Ms;, Lorna Doone cookies, Skittles and Jolly Ranchers.

Some links related to Friday’s entries:

BusinessWeek’s article on OLEDs, with more information on their invention and current use in small displays.

A Wired news piece on Wireless sensors for measuring vineyard air temperatures.

No, I just love my hand-me-down 500mhz desktop PC, why do you ask?
A review of the iPod-like Lapvantage Deluxe Dome and, in rather related news, CNet has a handy list of their reviewed and recommended ultraportable notebooks and “thin-and-light” notebooks. (via Gizmodo)

Erasure of Peter Gabriel
“Solsbury Hill” is my favorite Peter Gabriel song, not only for its intensely personal lyrics, but for the jaunty quirkiness that comes from the tune being in 7/4 time. I have difficulty explaining my reaction to first hearing the Erasure cover of the song. I can’t say I was appalled; I give covers of my most admired performers’ songs a fair chance, the best result being my fondness for Kurt Cobain’s acoustic rendition of David Bowie’s “Man Who Sold the World.” The Erasure treatment of “Solsbury Hill” left me … confused. I recognized it as Erasure ably spinning a song they respect into a dance tune. But something about it wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t until the second time I happened upon it that I realized the problem. It was no longer in 7/4 time. In turning it to a danceable 8/4 rhythm they completely lost the appealing lilt of the song. As this interview with the duo reveals (scroll down to “Changing Times”), it was indeed the dance nature of their drum work that led them to change the song to 8/4.

If you’ve ever dreamed of a romantic, idyllic life as a vineyard owner, read about the real life trials of a year in wine country. First comes pruning, which has to happen in the dormant winter season, except not while its wet for fear of fungus. When the buds come out in early spring, your cell phone or pager may go off in the middle of night with a message from your frost warning system. Time to go out and operate the heavy machinery, wind machines and sprinklers, that keeps your vines from freezing and dying. One vineyard manager contended with 22 frost nights in a row; a toll that would cause even an all-nighter-pulling college student to pause. When warm weather finally takes a hold, you get to contend with mildew, disease-carrying insects, root-eating insects, and bigger things like moles, gophers and rabbits. Vines that grow too quickly may produce grapes that fall off too easily. From summer through fall, the crop needs to be carefully monitored for proper irrigation and nutrients. Birds arrive as the grapes mature. Then harvest must be carefully timed. After the grapes are safely tucked into wine barrels, the fields must be prepped for the next year. And the cycle begins anew.

The future’s so bright, you’ll be wearing glowing shades. ZDNet’s Tech Guide gives us the lowdown on OLEDs, organic light emitting diodes. “As well as having the potential for many different forms of display, the technology can be much brighter, thinner and more efficient than any other type of flat screen.” The drawback right now is that they will easily degrade when in contact with oxygen or water, the two things we humans can’t live without. So the encapsulation technology for OLEDs will need to be improved. But the applications are exciting, especially when compared to the backlit, energy draining LCDs in common use now. Once dynamic color displays are cheap, they truly will be everywhere, competing for our attention.

My husband finally wrote about his GameBoy Advance SP — except it is really about when he was working at Apple on the Newton. But it’s good.

Tired of waiting for your sweetener crystals to dissolve in drinks? Sugarshots is liquid cane sugar which will sweeten your beverages instantly and evenly. I thought it was merely bottled simple syrup, the stuff I cook up for lemonade, but they claim it is different. Their proprietary brewing method ensures that the sugar will never recrystallize and it does not need refrigeration. The sugar to water ratio is also better. Sugarshots comes in Original, Organic, Turbinado (for all you “sugar in the raw” users), and Free! which is a “proprietary formulation that binds natural grain dextrins to fruit juice so it metabolizes steadily.” I’m going to stick to my first choice of sweetener, liquid or otherwise: honey.

I never questioned the reality of MIT’s swim test requirement for graduation, as I knew first-hand of its existence from friends who had to take it. But most people give me skeptical looks when I try to convince them that swimming was part of the physical education requirement at MIT. Well, turns out there’s a reason for the skepticism as there are urban legends connected to college swim test requirements. The detailed story concerns a female student whose rich parents donated a swimming pool to the college after she drowned. The condition for the donation was that the school must have a swimming requirement for all students. This isn’t the only urban legend built on odd benefactor requests, but it is one that is at least based on some truth, which is that many colleges used to have swimming requirements, and a few still do.